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Syria’s ‘people power’ protesters pay with their lives as 100 killed and up to 500 injured on Friday

[Aziza Sourris, Middle East and Africa News Contributor]

New York Times: Throughout Syria in the past few days, thousands have been in public protest against the ruling regime’s oppressive rule which responded with gunfire, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 protestors.

On Friday, in Dara’a, southern Syria, security forces had fired on protestors openly according to the witnesses. The government is also claiming that armed protestors had also shot at police officers resulting in the death of at least 19 of them. According to the New York Times, Ammar Abdulhamid, a US-based Syrian dissident who had assisted in organizing the protests, said that around 100 of the Dara’a protestors had been killed and up to 500 injured by the Syrian security forces.

In Damascus, in addition, around 15 protestors had been killed by security forces on Friday.

It is reported that President Obama has condemned the Syrian government’s actions and at the same time has condemned any violence on the part of the protesters.

Ausama Monajed, a London-based political activist who is in frequent touch with protesters in Dara’a and other cities said that the attack on the protesters in Dara’a was a “a massacre…what happened is that after Friday Prayers, the marchers started to chant, ‘Freedom! Freedom!’ and security forces opened fire….when the protesters tried to collect the dead and wounded, the security forces opened fire again.”